Pentatonix
Pentatonix (often abbreviated as PTX) is an American A Capella group of five vocalists originating from Arlington, Texas. Their work, mostly in, but not limited to, the pop music style, consists of covers of pre-existing songs and some original material, sometimes in the form of medleys. Their music is defined by their own arrangement style, a strong presence of low bass vocals, and a diverse range of vocal percussion. The group started as a trio in Arlington Texas with the members Scott Hoying, Mitch Grassi and Kirstie Maldonado, who have known each other since childhood and hey sang in the same school choir in High School. Their trio was formed because of radio contest where the big prize was to meet the cast of the musical TV-series Glee. They recorded a video of themselves where they sang a three-part harmony A Capella cover of Lady Gaga's song "Telephone" and sent it in. They didn't win but the trio caught the attention in their school so they continued to perform and arrange covers. When Scott was in College he was in the Collegiate A Capella group "SoCal VoCals" at USC, where a classmate, who had participated in a televised A Capella singing competition called "The Sing-Off", mentioned the show to Scott and encouraged him to enter it with his trio with a Beat Boxer and a vocal bass to fill out their sound. That same friend contacted him to Avi through a mutual friend and they found Kevin on YouTube by a video of him beat-boxing and playing cello at the same time. Because of time and schedule difficulties, all five of them didn't meet each other until the day before audition. They ended up winning the third season of The Sing-Off in 2011 with the prize of $200,000 and a recording contract with SONY. But only after a week, after moving to LA, SONY dropped them off their album. In desperate needs, the group started a YouTube channel, PTXofficial, and just started to upload videos of them singing covers in front of a camera. Times flew by and they got more and more views. Now they're probably the most famous A Capella group in the world within the pop culture. Thanks to the help of their Youtube channel and their ambition to be close to their fans through social media, they have gotten a lot of publicity and have had almost all of their five albums in the billboard topp 200, and got enough attention to be signed to RCA. Pentatonix is five members with four boys and one girl. Avi Kaplan (bass), Kevin Olusola (beatbox) Scott Hoying (Baritone) Mitch Grassi (tenor/counter tenor) and Kirstie Maldonado (mezo/soprano). Today their YouTube channel have over eight million subscribers and over half a billion views. Their video "Evolution of Music" is one of the first results that show up when you type in "Acapella" on YouTube. In the year of 2014, Pentatonix's latest Christmas album, sold over one million copies, earning them a golden and a platinum record. The only albums that sold more were; Taylor Swift's '1989' The 'Frozen' Soundtrack and Sam Smith's 'In the Lonely Hour'. On Febuary 8th 2015, the group won a Grammy for their Daft Punk medley together with their producer Ben Bram, in the category "Best Arrangement, instrumental or Acapella". Category:Pentatonix